


Hour of the Wolf

by jetblackmirror (orphan_account)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-30
Updated: 2010-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/jetblackmirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I can't wake up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hour of the Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Paramour Fic started October, 2006 and poked at like a scab until today. Heavily inspired by the song _Sleep_ and the book _House of Leaves_ by Mark Z. Danielewski. I wanted to do something where the way the words were presented was as important as the words themselves.

"It's the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning.  
You can't sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should've gone but didn't.  
All you can hear is the sound of your own heart."  
-Commander Susan Ivanova,  
 _Babylon 5_ ; Season 4, Episode 1

  


He hasn't slept in days.  
He's tired. His lashes heavy as he  
blinks to clear the milk white film from his eyes.

                       
 

  
_Record._   


  


Frank thinks he looks a little bit like he did when his brother was in the shit. When he  
was nearing rock bottom. Rock bottom, he hates that fucking expression. To Frank rock  
bottom is a fucking lie. A joke. Of course you can sink lower. You can fucking die, that's  
a whole lot lower than pissing and puking in some nameless parking lot while your so-called  
friend giggles at you like a retard hyena.

He hates that part of their fucking life story. He cringes every time he's made to watch  
that clip. What kind of friend is that? Laughing while someone throws their life away.  
Laughing right along while your friend holds a gun to his ear. Hovers a kitchen knife  
over his forearm.

Tips a toast with a cyanide cocktail. Gives himself a fat necklace that's attached to the  
God damned rafters.

Frank won't let that happen again, won't be that kind of fucked up friend again. He knows  
Mikey won't listen to him, even as he kisses Mikey's temple, fluffs his hair and asks him  
how he slept. Mikey's not listening to the question under the question. He can't see  
through the veil of smoke, can't understand that Frank is worried shitless about  
him.

Mikey isn't listening to any of them right now. But he'll listen to Gerard. He'll listen  
to his brother. He has to. He always does. Gerard is his rock. Gerard is their rock. He  
got through it, he can get Mikey though it.

"Wake him up."

And Gerard looks at Frank with blood orange rind eyes. Frank can feel spider feet on the  
back of his neck, and they don't go away when Gerard nods and mutters softly, his voice a  
wisp on the edge of Marlboro smoke. "I'll talk to him."

  


And he keeps writing.

Words rushing from a chewed bit of graphite that's long past its  
glory days. It's all gibberish. Metaphor and allegory. All  
fucking bullshit.

And he's tired.

                       
 

  
_Stop._   


  


Ray feels like he's trying to play guitar with chopstick fingers. His hands won't dance  
the way his mind knows they can. His head knows the steps, his heart feels the notes, but  
there's a wire out of place. His hands are out of service, roaming. Have been shut off for  
not paying their bill. Everything is distorted. Discordant. Sloppy. He starts. And stops.  
And curses. And starts again.

**"I can't wake up."**

"At least you're trying." He can hear Frank mutter, and Ray's not sure if he meant that to  
be heard, if he even meant to speak or if his mouth was just betraying his thoughts. For  
the amount of time it takes a bird to blink Ray considers throwing his guitar right at  
Frank's head. He can see it, can see it fracture his skull, can see the blood splatter  
against the wall, can see it pool on the floor. Then he just feels drained, and shitty,  
like he should apologize even though he didn't even come close to hurling his guitar.

Frank's own guitar is lying flat in his lap, and Ray watches for a moment as he fights  
with a bit of wire. Like he's trying to tame a lion, or ride a bull for the mandatory  
eight seconds. It's the second string he's broken today, and the sixth this week. They're  
both playing for shit. Ray struggling to remember the dance his fingers used to know by  
heart. Frank trying to beat his strings to death or his fingers bloody.

                       
                         
                         
                         
  **I can't wake up.**

Ray knows what Frank's getting at, and he doesn't even have to glance across the room to  
know that Mikey's bass is sitting propped against the old fireplace, collecting dust and  
cobwebs like a violin forgotten in the attic.

A crutch without an owner, not so carefully preserved.

  


His eyes dart about of  
their own volition. Wavering. Peripheral  
bleeding in and out as phantoms of intellect and echoes of  
madness claw at the skin over his eyes.

He's tired.

                       
 

  
_Rewind._   


  


Bob leaves the kitchen when Frank starts yelling, coffee mug resting warm and  
comfortable against the palm of his hand. When Frank gets going, Bob gets moving; the  
yearning for a cigarette never fails to pull him outside.

There are a few stray leaves floating in the pool. Brown and withered, shriveled up like  
discarded chrysalides. Bob thinks that's some poetic crap Gerard's brain would shit out,  
and maybe he's been spending a bit too much time locked away with no one but these four  
other dudes for company. It's not the first time he's thought this, and he can't help but  
wonder if this is the beginning or the end of them.                        
  **_I can't wake up._**                        
  Or both. Or neither.

There's a crushed soft pack of Parliaments in his back pocket, though he has to go through  
all of them before he finds it. The smoke is sharp and sweet on his tongue; the cigarette  
bent all to shit. His exhale hangs lazily in the thick air, and he briefly misses Chicago.

"Um."                        
  **I. Can't. Wake. Up.**                        
  The non-word is rough and faint, but Bob knows the voice despite the wear and  
brevity. Despite how long it's been since he last heard it.

Bob simply hands his cigarette over to Mikey, digging out another for himself. Their  
fingers brush, and Bob's tingle a little from the contact. Like touching something brittle  
and dead. Like touching spider legs if Frank touched spider legs. Though Bob's not about  
to shriek like a tool and run for the hills.

Bob drops himself down into the chair next to Mikey's, stretching his legs out and letting  
his slippers dangle off the edge. A few more inches and they'd be right over the  
pool.

He times his drags with Mikey's, words curling between them with the smoke.

"I'm worried about your brother."

  


Worn out.

Broken.

He should sleep but he can't close his eyes. Won't let himself  
close his eyes. He should stop writing before he begins to truly  
hate himself. Hate everything he's done and who he is.

Who he's become.

He's tired of hiding behind ghosts and shadows and smoke.

He wants to be honest. Wants to become something real. Wants to  
stop pretending and start dreaming. Wants to know that he  
matters. That they matter. That this matters.

And he can't sleep. And does that matter?

                       
 

  
_Stop._   


  


Every night it's the same. They lie in bed. Lie awake. One of them tossing and turning,  
choking and gasping and fighting away demons. The other flat on his back, staring at the  
wide ceiling, watching shapes manifest where there are no shadows.

They don't know it but they take turns. A morbid dance of                        
  ****I can't wake up.****                        
                         
  insomnia, their breaths the hymns of the damned. Quiet and slow and shallow. Deep  
and wet and broken. Their sweat makes the sheets stick to their skin, their legs churning  
the cotton.

Hours skitter by.

And just like when they were small Mikey finally breaks. In the fragile hours he finds his  
way to his brother's bed. It's not so hard. He has the way memorized. Stand and turn,  
count five to the door. Through the door and eight. Footboard. He always bumps his knee.  
Always holds his breath and waits.

Gerard never stirs.

Mikey wishes                        
                         
  **I c a n 't w a k e u p .**                        
  he would. He could apologize then, even as he crawls under the covers and presses  
his face to Gerard's arm. To that soft spot just below the shoulder ball and just above  
his bicep. He wishes his brother would wake up so he could curl up against him. So they  
could rest like that and not say anything.

But Gerard never stirs. Mikey settles down on the floor. He presses his back against the  
bed, draws his knees up against his chest. His knuckles go white as he makes himself small.  
His lungs burning with the need to take a breath for more than a whisper.

He never turns. Never sees Gerard's blank eyes on him. Never hears the slight inhalation  
of Gerard's breath when he finally decides to move. Never hears the anticipation. Never  
hears the invitation.

They sleep together.

They sleep alone.

They don't sleep at all.

  


Not when the madness drips  
in through his pupils. His dreams a  
twisting wasteland of wrath and agony. Not when all he feels is  
fire. All he sees is gore. All he tastes is ash.

                       
 

  
_Play._   


"I can't wake up."

                       
                         
                         
                         
 I can't wake up.

                       
  _I can't wake up._                        
 

**  
**Y O U  H A V E  T O  W A K E  U P**   
**

  


                       
  I. Can't. Wake. Up.

                       
  **I can't wake up.**                        
                         
                         
 

                       
                         
  I c a n 't w a k e u p .                        
 

  


His hair feels like how  
he'd imagine silk as it's first shit from  
a caterpillar's ass. His fingers blurring his scratched words  
when they return. An oil slick. The tips of his digits feel numb.  
Nails worn away to bloody caked stumps.

He plays the tapes.

He hears his voice from a distance. Through a pane of painted  
glass. And he wonders if he really speaks this coherently. Or if  
the garbled muck of his weary mind is the only language he can  
understand clearly anymore.

He hits rewind. He hits stop.

And play.

And stop.

                       
 

  
_Record._   



End file.
